Feb.16 (GMM) The European parliament has taken another step closer to initiating an investigation into formula one.
We reported this week that parliamentarians were poised to vote, after pressure was applied for the body to look into “competition concerns” regarding governance, tax and conflict of interest in F1.
The conflict of interest relates to the regulating FIA’s $80 million windfall as a result of the recent sale of F1’s commercial rights to Liberty Media.
In 2015, blogger Joe Saward had said “the FIA under Jean Todt has got itself into some strange situations for a sports regulator”.
“One assumes that all of these things will come under scrutiny if an European Commission investigation does go ahead,” he added.
Now, F1 business journalist Christian Sylt writes in Forbes that the parliament did indeed vote in favour of the report calling for an “immediate investigation”.
“The vote to approve the report was passed through today with 476 in favour compared to 156 against,” he said.
We reported earlier that F1 could face a $168 million fine, and Sylt adds that contracts binding the sport together could be “torn up” and declared “illegal”.